Chapter 3

It was late morning four after the shooting that Nate finally came back to consciousness. He had been moved out of ICU two days after surgery as the doctor said he was stable, which had made things easier for the Leverage crew as they were all able to stay with him. He woke to find Sophie beside him holding his hand tightly but no sign of the other three.

"Sophie…" He said as he opened his eyes and looked at her. "Sophie are you ok?"

"I'm fine Nate." She said looking down at him. "You are the one with two bullet wounds."

"What happened?" Nate asked, he remembered the man entering the bar and sensing the danger, he remembered him firing the gun and pushing Sophie out of the way and then nothing.

"You got shot."

"Yes I got that Sophie." He grimaced at her as he tried to sit further up in the bed and experienced a sharp and unwelcome pain, then he felt her soft hands chest making him lie back.

"Careful Nate remember you took two bullets." She said looking at him with worried eyes. "What happened was that guy walked in and started firing, you…you pushed me out of the way and then Eliot and the others arrived, and you were brought here. That was four days ago."

Nate closed his eyes and thought about that. He tried to recall what had happened but all he remembered was wanting to get Sophie out of the line of fire.

"I thought…I thought I lost you Nate."

"Shhh…it's ok Sophie, it's ok." He said squeezing her hand gently. "Do we know who he is, what he wanted?"

"Hardison is working on that."

"What else Sophie…"

"I…I…"

"Sophie just tell me." Was one of the other team members hurt, he needed to know.

"I'm pregnant." Sophie blurted out keeping her eyes on him.

Nate's eyes went wide on hearing those words. She was pregnant, pregnant with his child, he was going to be a father again.

"Sophie…"

"Oh Nate I didn't want to tell you like this." She said.

"No…no Sophie that…that is wonderful…I…Oh God I love you so much…" He said pulling her into him and kissing her ignoring the pain it caused.

"Easy there now Nate." She smiled at him as she pulled away seeing the wince of pain.

"When…"

"Yesterday afternoon, I was going to tell you but then…well…"

Nate said nothing just kept his eyes locked on the woman he loved. She was pregnant and he was going to have another child. Then his eyebrows knotted as a terrible thought entered his head, what if, what if there was something wrong with the baby, what if he or she also got sick, what if what happened to Sam repeated itself.

"Nate…" Sophie said seeing the emotional turmoil on his face. "Nate are you ok?"

"Yes…yes more than ok…" Nate said smiling at her. Nothing was going to happen to this child. It would be healthy and happy and so would they. "I…"

"You are scared." Sophie said putting her hand on his cheek. "I understand."

"It's just that…"

"Nate I know, you are thinking about Sam and I understand, but this is not Sam, and nothing is going to happen to this baby, our baby." She smiled down at him and then leaned in for a gentle kiss.

"God I love you Sophie." He said and she could see that love in his eyes which brought tears to hers.

"Hey look who's awake." Hardison said as he and the others entered the room.

"Hey Hardison, Parker, Eliot, good to see you all." Nate said as Sophie pulled away from him but keeping his hand in hers.

"So she told you?" Eliot said looking at the Mastermind's face and seeing the look of pure happiness there.

"You knew?" Nate asked looking at Sophie.

"I…when I thought you were dead I…when I thought he had killed you…I let it slip." She said apologetically.

"Well it doesn't matter. We are having a baby." Nate said squeezing her hand gently. "Our family is about to get and extra member." He smiled at them.

"Another hacker,…" Hardison grinned.

"No another thief…" Parker said slapping him on his arm.

Eliot said nothing, he did not want another hitter in the family, that was not something he wanted for any child. But whatever this baby was, boy or girl he would protect him or her with his life, that much he did know.

"Mr Ford how are you today?" The doctor said as he entered the room with his nurse in tow. "Mrs Ford could I ask that you all wait outside please."

Sophie nodded then gave Nate a peck before leaving the room with the other three. They did not go far standing and watching at the window as the doctor spoke to and examined Nate.

"Mr Ford we seem to have a problem." The doctor said as the others left.

"What problem?" Nate said seeing the concern on the doctors' face.

"Your blood work has come back showing that you have been infected with some form of toxin. We have determined that the toxin came to be in your system through the bullets, I had the bullet that we extracted examined after the blood work came back and confirmed the bullets were coated with it."

"What toxin?"

"Well that we do not know precisely, I have given it to our laboratories, and they are trying to figure out what the toxin is and if there is any antitoxin to it."

"Ok so what are you saying doctor." Nate said but he already knew what the man was going to say.

"I am afraid Mr Ford that unless we can find the antitoxin there is nothing we can do, and you will die." The doctor said bluntly, there was no other way to say it he thought.

Nate took a minute to digest that information and his eyes moved to the figure of Sophie standing outside the room looking in. He smiled at her she did not need this now he thought.

"How long?"

"I have no way of telling that Mr Ford, as we have no idea what the toxin is, apart from the fact that it is a neurotoxin, we also have no idea what kind of issues it will cause, although it seems to affect your nervous system and it will cause severe pain and there may be other issues, but I am not as I said particularly sure what they will be, the toxin is completely unknown. I have alerted the authorities to this development in case they have some record of this kind of thing, we can only hope that they have dealt with this before and have an antitoxin for what you were given."

"Ok so what can I do?" Nate said slightly perturbed about the police aspect but hopefully, like the doctor said they may know something, besides their cover was sound.

"At the moment Mr Ford there is nothing you can do. We need to determine the kind of toxin before we can do anything."

Nate sighed heavily as he thought about that. He was going to be a father again and he was dying. Well better him than Sophie and his unborn son or daughter. Did he tell them he wondered briefly as he watched them staring into the room, he could tell they were aware that something was wrong.

"Ok well Mr Ford, we will monitor you closely, I am not sure when the symptoms will start to show, however it will not be very long I would assume, it has already been four days since you were exposed." The doctor said. This type of toxin was going to cause this man tremendous pain of that he was sure, when it would start and how severe it would be though he had no idea, he just hoped his lab could find out what it was and how to counteract it before it killed him.

Eliot stood outside and watched closely the interaction between Nate and the doctor. He could see something was wrong, but he did not know what. His gut churned as he felt something was terribly wrong, and it might be something they had no control over. He looked towards Sophie and he saw the concern on her face, she could read body language as well as he could, and she also knew there was something wrong. Eventually the doctor left the room and the glance he gave them told Eliot he was right, and something was very wrong, and the doctor was almost apologetic in his glance.

"Nate what is wrong?" Sophie said as he walked up to his bed and took his hand. "And don't tell me nothing because something is, and I want to know what."

Nate looked at her and then at the others. These were people at the top of their games, they could read people, read body language and even if he did not want to tell them they knew something was wrong. He took a deep breath and then squeezed Sophie's hand before telling them what the doctor had told him.